Created: Mar 23, 2022 07:34 AM
Two women admitted being “pawns” in separate internet banking scams that cost victims thousands of dollars.
Julie Burchall, 58, pleaded guilty to a single count of money laundering, while Shirley-Ann Pearman, also 58, pleaded guilty to dishonestly obtaining a wrongful credit when they appeared in the Supreme Court yesterday.
In both cases, fraudsters pretended to be Microsoft staff to convince the victims to give them access to their computers and bank accounts before they raided the victims’ savings.
The court heard that on August 3, 2016, the first victim was contacted by a woman with an East Indian accent who said that her computer was rife with computer viruses.
The caller said they could remedy the issue at a cost of $300, and the victim gave the conman total access to her computer, along with her debit card information to pay for the service.
However, as soon as the interaction had ended, the victim became concerned about the incident and contacted her bank to halt any transactions.
Later that evening, she discovered that $12,500 had been withdrawn from her account, leaving it overdrawn.
She contacted her bank, who said the money had been transferred to the account of Burchall.
Burchall, from Warwick, later admitted that she had allowed her account to be used to receive the fund in exchange for $500.
The other $12,000 was withdrawn from her account on August 4 and she said the funds were given to another…
